The Crystal Garden

By John Cadden

The Crystal Garden
John Cadden

So, there you are – a middling, middle-class, middle-aged biographer – bored with your own life and – doubly worrying given your profession – the lives of others. Only suddenly – you are not there. You’re somewhere else – accidentally caught in a sinister spiral of intrigue that involves an English aristocrat, a Spanish ‘businessman’, a retired detective, a dead crime-lord......and a dark and dangerous secret from the past.
Except it’s no accident – for that secret involves you in a shocking way.
And now your life is a lot less boring.
The Crystal Garden is the story of an ordinary man trapped in a maelstrom of extraordinary events; a reserved, rational man suddenly free-falling in a world where nothing is as it appears; an unremarkable man who must now find remarkable qualities to survive.
This noir, violent, pacey narrative is powerfully driven by writing that is taut, sharp and liberally seasoned with wholly unexpected twists and dark humour.
If you wish to discover the truth – be seriously careful what you wish for.......

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Cadden
• Release date: Jul 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301065639

Book preview

The Crystal Garden

John Cadden

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 John Cadden

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Table of Contents

Prologo

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Postscript

Prologo

The speedboat - a sleek, raven-black, Tiger - eased slowly out of the marina at Puerto Banus. Rounding the outer sea-wall, the driver gazed across the open waters of Marbella Bay. He opened the throttle, watched as the prow reared against the engine’s roar, then turned the rapidly accelerating craft towards Punta Ladrones - Thieves’ Point - some ten miles to the east.

The explosion which shattered the stillness of that bright, breezeless May afternoon was heard well beyond Punta Ladrones. Bathers on the beach at Las Lomas told police the boat just seemed to self-combust. Its scorched remnants were hurled across several miles of sea.

Marine investigators eventually concluded that a rupture in the fuel injection system had caused the accident.

Only the driver had been onboard. The charred body washed ashore on the evening tide.

1

William Travers often wished his life had a remote-control, like his television, so he could flip channels and be somewhere else, doing something completely different. As he grew older, this wish gave way to the suspicion that his life was operated by a remote, but one that was controlled by somebody else. And this mysterious controller was obsessed with just the one channel - a channel of endless repeats and re-runs, where all was grey and grainy and nothing new ever appeared.

After forty-seven years, he had decided that ‘hope’ wasn’t the cruellest deceiver. It was the illusion of choice. Sure, he got to choose some things - shoes, toothpaste, wallpaper. Occasionally even friends and jobs - though these were choices he often came to regret. But these were the inconsequential trimmings, the peripherals. He got to choose the frame, but the actual picture was designed elsewhere. The momentous and life-changing things - where and when we’re born, parents, siblings, teachers, illnesses, falling in and out of love - these are what shape our big picture. But where's the consultation, the negotiation, the Options Menu for these things? In terms of what really mattered, Travers decided, choice never came into it.

With both parents now dead, he had moved back into the old house. And once more, he was surrounded by all that had shaped him, all that had made his ‘choices’ for him. Middle Class Middle England. The only difference was he could now add his own Middle Age to the stultifying mix.

And that was the word - with its subtle condemnation, its disapproving murmur of a lack of nerve and drive - that haunted him. Middling. A middling childhood, with no traumas or vibrant memories. A middling marriage, that had flirted with passion before flatlining into tedium. A middling academic career, which brought security without satisfaction. A middling reputation as a biographer, which brought satisfaction without remuneration. And as he grew older, the whisper on the wind grew louder. This is not enough, it sighed, there should have been more.....

He had climbed his life’s little hill. He had scaled the incline of youth, possibility and expectation. Now, as he stood on the modest crest, the only view was the downward slope of the predictable to the inevitable. True, he wore his age quite well. The blonde hair was thinning, but retained most of its colour. The vaguely aristocratic features - high forehead, blue eyes, aquiline nose and strong jaw - carried the marks of time - the creasing and fleshing out - without losing their refinement. His six feet of height also enabled him to carry an increasing girth without appearing overweight. His health was still sound - apart from the occasional shortness of breath, a residual complication from pneumonia, the only serious illness he had ever had. The malaise of William Travers had nothing to do with his body. It lay in his mind and in his heart.

He still taught - occasionally - though more to satisfy his bank manager than his students. He remained on reasonably cordial terms with his ex-wife - as long as they were predominantly her terms. And he continued to write - though, for Travers, the lives of others were becoming as stale as his own, which was a rather alarming development for a biographer.

It hadn’t all been ‘middling’. Some strands of his existence had not even attained that undizzy height. Two failures stood out. The first - the one that repeatedly caused him most anxiety - was fatherhood. His son, Alex, was a nineteen-year-old stranger who seemed to have sprung from a different species, rather than Travers’ own loins. A now - technically - adult stranger with whom conversation was impossible and communication unthinkable. Travers always had trouble recalling details of his own uneventful youth. But he did remember being nineteen - in all its urgent, uncertain intensity. And he had hoped this would provide a reservoir of understanding that could cleanse and soothe the rift that had been growing between father and son over the last two years. It had not. And Travers had taken this failure - which he saw as his own - deeply to heart.

The other failure had been his novels - all three of which continued to suffer from ‘publishers’ block’. He had been particularly depressed by the conclusive rejection of his most recent - and finest - effort. He was prepared to write off the early attempts as craft-learning apprenticeships, but A Cut Above - a wry, lean corkscrew of crime and intrigue - had been nurtured and honed through two years of meticulous re-writes. It was probably the one thing in his life which gave him a genuine sense of pride and achievement. And - in terms of success - it had not even made ‘middling’.

This, then, was the sum of his life. This - and one other thing. Something that had happened eight years ago and still had the power to render everything else utterly meaningless: the death of his daughter. Eight years on - and he missed Clara more than ever. He could still see those blue eyes, the impish smile, the sudden frown of confusion. Still hear her voice, teasing him, imploring him. Most painful of all, he still expected her to appear - through a door, around a corner - at any given moment.

And now? The millenium - another cruel illusion of hope and regeneration - had come, gone and changed nothing. False dawn over a dead-end. The same grey channel. But not quite. For in its aftermath, three months later, came the phone call.

William Travers?

Speaking....

"My name’s Henderson. Philip Henderson. I’m a Commissioning Editor with Grove Publishing. You sent us a manuscript a while back. I was wondering if we could have a chat".

The voice on the other end of the phone was clipped, confident - with a slight trace of a Welsh accent. As leading specialists in crime fiction, Grove’s had been one of the first houses he’d tried.

You want to talk about the manuscript? asked Travers, surprised.

"Not exactly. Something else. Look, I’m in Birmingham for a few days. I know it’s short notice, but could you possibly come over tomorrow - say, one o’clock - the Concordia Hotel?"

Travers was momentarily thrown. Nearly all his dealings with publishers had been through formal and protracted correspondence. The caller had an intriguingly purposeful tone. In the complete absence of anything better to do - and with Birmingham a mere twenty minutes away by car - he agreed to the meeting.

.

Henderson proved more surprising in person than he had been on the phone, by being almost the exact opposite of what Travers expected. Gone was the assertive, brusque confidence - replaced by a shambling, preoccupied nervousness. He seemed to be in his early fifties, with a tall, yet stooped frame that suggested he had been born an editor and hunched over books from the cradle. There was a luxuriant, unkempt crop of grey hair which frequently flopped down over heavy-rimmed, thick-lensed spectacles - behind which the eyes constantly darted and flickered to avoid contact. The complexion was sallow, the features drawn and gaunt. And all this was framed in a dark suit which was as crumpled as the man himself.

He extended a limp hand in greeting - the simple gesture performed with awkward embarrassment - picked up a battered leather briefcase and flustered his guest over to a quiet table in the hotel lounge.

I do apologise for the short notice, Mister Travers. But it seemed fortuitous, my being in Birmingham - and I have been meaning to contact you for some time.

The voice, at least, still carried the same sense of purpose. Travers was already finding the shuffling eyes very disconcerting.

"We’ve recently been under pressure to develop our catalogue. The fiction returns remain strong - especially Crime. Oh, would you care for some tea, or something?"

Travers felt they could probably both do with something a lot stronger to relax the unease, but simply shook his head.

"My department is Biography and Belles Lettres - but I’ve now been asked to....tap into and develop our main strength".

Henderson’s tone made it clear that he had found such a request unappealing. As a ‘literary’ editor, he seemed to find his latest brief - whatever it was - somewhat demeaning. Perhaps this was what preoccupied him and made him appear so distracted. Travers simply wished he’d get to the point.

"Crime Biography, said Henderson, duly obliging. That’s what....we are looking into. The ‘we’ had been a last-minute replacement for a more caustic ‘they’. I have to admit, the field is open and relatively unploughed. There are few decent titles - and those there are tend to be predictably old hat - Capone, Dillinger, the Krays. Our own preliminary discussions have already thrown up many contemporary possibilities - everything from terrorists to drug barons, crime lords and hi-tec fraudsters. And many of these lives are far more interesting - and surprisingly mundane at the same time - than anything devised by fiction".

And, by definition, said Travers, speaking for the first time, lives that are highly secretive, guarded and very difficult to penetrate.

Indeed, agreed Henderson, for once holding Travers in his gaze. "Which is where someone such as yourself comes in. A proven biographer. A writer with the necessary skills. Most crime biographies are written by dilettantes, enthusiasts, associates. The subject takes them over. They lack the biographer’s discipline and dispassion".

Travers knew that no biographer was ever truly dispassionate, but didn’t want to enter an irrelevant discussion. He was intrigued by the way in which Henderson, almost in spite of himself, seemed to be warming to his theme.

You said ‘someone such as me’....?

Henderson nodded. You appear, Mister Travers, eminently qualified in terms of what we are looking for. The accompanying smile was probably intended to flatter, but it had a pained quality and quickly evaporated. "I am told the novel you submitted to us had a compelling sense of the criminal underworld and strongly-drawn characters. It was apparently the narrative that gave them problems. I know some of your work - the books on Marlowe and Rodrigo Borgia - both rogues incidentally, if not outright criminals. So - we know you can write biographies and we know you have this....affinity, shall we say, with crime".

Somewhere inside, Travers was disappointed. He had vaguely hoped the meeting might concern his novel - or, at least, his novel-writing. After ten minutes with Henderson, he was still not quite sure what it did concern.

I still don’t really see what this is about...

Henderson rummaged in his briefcase and brought out a lime-green folder. He placed it on the table between them and tapped it lightly, like a magician starting a trick.

This, he said, with a decisive intensity. "To get the project off the ground, we’re commissioning three titles. One is on Pablo Escobar - which I’ve given to a house writer. The second is on Leila Khalid - and I’ve farmed that one out to an expert on the Middle East. I am confident both will be strong and solid pieces. In terms of biography, they will, however, both be quite....what shall I say?....‘straight’. But this one.... - Henderson again tapped the folder - this one, I think, could be something different, something special. And it is this one I would like you to consider...."

Henderson’s strange performance over the last few moments had begun to invest the folder with a talismanic quality. Both men were now gazing at the cardboard sleeve that lay between them.

Asa Byrne, said Henderson, as if softly intoning a mantra. Ever heard of him?

Travers shook his head. Again, Henderson treated him to a wan smile.

"I’d be disappointed if you had. Very few have heard of him. And that’s the beauty of it. There’s a tale in there, continued Henderson, nodding at the folder, which - if told properly - could be more than a biography and much more than a novel".

There was a long pause. Henderson then answered the question implicit in the silence.

I would like you to take this dossier. Look it over. If it appeals - and if you feel you can do justice to the material - I would like to offer you the commission. Standard contract, with an advance - but that’s all detail at the moment. Look at the material, Mister Travers - that’s all I ask.

Once again, the brief smile was more unsettling than re-assuring. It had been a strange meeting. Strangest of all, as far as William Travers was concerned, was that he found himself agreeing at its conclusion.

Good, said Henderson, without a trace of satisfaction and reverting to shambling mode as he fished in his inner pocket for a card. Take a week to consider. Then contact me. He handed the card across the table. I’ll be away from the office - technically on holiday - so use the mobile number at the bottom.

Another awkward handshake later, the meeting was over.

Travers left the hotel, clutching the folder. A squall of cold, April rain gusted along Broad Street in the mid-afternoon gloom. He pulled the worn, faded leather jacket across his front and scurried into a nearby pub. The huge, wooden-floored bar was still half-full with early drunks and late lunchers. He took his beer to a table in the corner and opened the folder.

The contents comprised about 30 sheets of A4 paper. The top two were a typed Summary and the rest seemed to be a variety of photocopies - school reports, press cuttings, documents and the like. Each sheet was referenced - ‘PH/AB’ followed by a number - in the top right-hand corner. Travers turned to the first sheet and began reading.

.

Asa Byrne

Summary

Born 12.11.52. Only child of Mary Margaret Byrne. Named after

maternal grandmother’s obsession with Al Jolson. Never knew father.

Lived at 52 Scholar Street in particularly deprived area of Liverpool.

Attended Webster Road Primary School. Reports indicate considerable

intellectual capability, outstanding prowess at sport and a rebellious

restlessness. (Possibly not challenged enough by a school with low

expectations.)

Won scholarship to grammar school - 1963. Early reports similar to

primary school - but show increasing involvement in ‘trouble’ - mainly

fighting and back-chatting teachers. (Possible ‘class’ issue.)

In December 1966, aged 14, questioned by police in connection with

a gang assault which resulted in death of a black teenager. Denied

involvement and refused to give information on perpetrators. Case

became very high-profile. Media interest and increased racial

tensions pressured both police and Prosecution Service.

(Both later accused of being heavy-handed and self-protecting.)

Tried and convicted as ‘accessory before the fact’.

Sentenced to two years detention at Highfield Remand Centre. While

there, mother died in road accident (1967).

1968 - 1972 - no recorded information or known whereabouts.

Next surfaces, aged 20, in company of George Green, leader of a small

but growing crime ‘family’ with strong - and rare - connections to the

Black Dragons of Liverpool’s Chinatown. (Mainly as a drugs’ conduit.)

Soon viewed as Green’s leading advisor/lieutenant/enforcer.

18.7.74 - major incident at A&K warehouse on Liverpool Docks (dubbed

‘Gunfight at AK Corale’ in one national newspaper). Three dead, seven

wounded, including Asa Byrne. Details still unclear - code of silence

prevailed on both sides.(Rumours were plentiful: Byrne led outrageous

raid on rival operation; Byrne took bullet - which passed clean through

his side, missing all vital organs - saving George Green’s life and so on.)

Asa Byrne arrested and charged with murder. George Green hires top

Q.C. for Byrne’s defence. Pre-trial descends into farce as Byrne’s legal

team highlight errors in police procedure.

(Assistant Chief Constable ultimately resigns.) Eventually stands trial

for possession of firearm with intention of committing indictable offence.

Convicted and sentenced to five years in Walton Prison.

1974 - 1977, serves three years, then released. In prison, successfully

completes Open University degree in Psychology.

1978 - 1981, re-joins George Green - now established as one of leading

crime bosses in North West. Early 1982, Green, under increasing pressure from

police, rivals and ill-health, ‘retires’ to Spain. Asa Byrne overhauls

operation - re-structures and refines the ‘core business’. (Apparently

focuses more on drugs and probably resumes links with Black Dragons.)

1984 - Asa Byrne moves to London, ostensibly to set up PS Enterprises,

which becomes the parent holding company for operations in the North.

1984 - 1990 - from a suspected core activity in drugs (mainly South American

cocaine through Portugal and Spain), Asa Byrne diversifies into hi-tec

and high-finance operations. Also more high-profile at this time -

often seen on the socialite round of galas, arts/charity events etc.

Lives in highly exclusive Knightsbridge apartment, complete with

cars, yachts etc.

1991 - forms The Pluto Group - into which all his existing companies

and operations are subsumed. This is a huge, hydra-like foundation

with tentacles intertwining into (literally) thousands of other

companies, share-holdings, partnerships etc. Its complexity is its

protection. (One expert from the National Criminal Intelligence

Service described it as "a near-untouchable masterpiece - structured

on a remarkable knowledge of business law and accounting, which

is deployed with astonishing ingenuity".)

1992 - 1998 - Pluto goes from strength to strength - taking market

fluctuations, criminal competition and criminal investigation (now

including Interpol and CIA) in its lengthening stride. During this

period, the only known ‘emotional’ relationship of Asa Byrne - with

April Masterson, daughter of property magnate, Sir Charles Masterson.

23.5.98 - Asa Byrne dies, aged 46, in speed-boat accident off Puerto

Banus, Spain. Spanish police investigate and decide no suspicious

circumstances. Body cremated, Marbella, Spain, 16.6.98.

[12.2.99 - April Masterson commits suicide while pregnant]

.

Note from DG.

As requested, the above is just the bare, known facts - with some

notes I thought might be helpful. The research as a whole suggests that

Asa Byrne was a highly intelligent man who devoted his many talents

to becoming the quintessential ‘modern’ criminal. He clearly committed

astonishing acts of daring and deceit. I suspect he was also capable of

exceptional levels of ruthlessness - even cruelty - but also of loyalty. In all

likelihood, Asa Byrne personally engaged in most crimes on most statute

books - up to, and including, kidnap and murder.

I can see why you are attracted to the project - boy from the slums

rises to major crime-lord etc. - but your writer will have a real problem

with the feeble ending.

.

Travers finished reading, laid down the sheets and gazed absently at his beer. He was not sure how he felt. The story of Asa Byrne’s life - even in such brief outline - was remarkable, though not, perhaps, unique. There must be a hundred such examples of the climb from punk to godfather, stretching right back to Capone himself. And, as a biographer, Travers always needed the handle of the ‘unique’.

Yet something still caused his mind to bristle, something ‘between the lines’, something magnetic in words such as masterpiece, daring, cruelty and loyalty. The novelist in him (he allowed himself the indulgence) wandered to possible angles. Was the remand home as seminal as it appeared - and, if so, why? What was the relationship with George Green - had he really saved his life? What was that Psychology degree all about? And that woman's suicide at the end - was there a hook there?

He flicked through the photocopied sheets. It was mostly official documents, dry and formulaic - school reports, an assessment from the remand home, the 1995 Annual Report from The Pluto Group, an Ayuntamiento de Marbella death certificate. There were a couple of press articles on the murder of the black teenager and several more on the warehouse shooting and trial. No photographs - which Travers found strange. The last sheet was a handwritten note:

Recommended early contacts:

Henry Jackson (retired D.I.)

45, Seabourne Road

Liverpool

(no telephone)

Davey Fox

(lifetime associate)

(current whereabouts unknown)

Travers took a long drink and considered pros and cons. He had the time. He was only teaching two evenings a week and was, at the moment, too dispirited to return to his novel-writing. He was contracted to a stint of book reviews, but could knock them out quite quickly. Any advance would be more than useful. Something new, different, might give him a lift, get him going again. Yet there were looming reservations. A biographer’s most serious problem was always the amount of credible, substantive material - and too much could be as troublesome as too little. Travers’ instinct told him that any investigation of the life of Asa Byrne would end up 25% fact, 25% rumour and speculation and 50% blanks, holes, gaps, silences, dead-ends and locked doors.

Biographers, he was convinced, were either ferrets or scribblers. (The best - or, at least, the most successful - were scribblers with a well-trained team of ferrets, invariably professors who could press-gang their more able students.) Travers knew he was essentially a scribbler, though he had developed his investigative skills along the way. But this was a life professional investigators had not been able to penetrate. And the seeming advantage of this being a contemporary life - with all the benefits of living witnesses, accessible, up-to-date records and so on - was obliterated by the nature of the life. Most of the information he would need or people he would want to contact would possibly - probably - be ‘sensitive’, to say the least. Not to mention still subject to prosecution.

As he finished his drink, he had all but made up his mind. He would enjoy the fleeting satisfaction of rejecting the publishers who had rejected him. A final thought seemed to seal the decision. For all his fascination with the world of crime, it was not a world into which he should even consider poking his actual, inexperienced nose.

Yet, as he stood to leave, the same thought flipped on its head - and came down on the other side. What a miserably pathetic attitude, he murmured to himself. Here is a chance to roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty. A chance to taste and feel the real thing. A chance to get out on the edge abit - and maybe achieve a bit more edge in his own work. A chance to achieve - for the first time - something more than middling.

.

Three weeks later, William Travers stood on Birmingham Airport awaiting a flight to Malaga, still wondering if he was doing the right thing.

After his first meeting with Henderson, he had spent several days going over the material and making preliminary moves. He managed to trace one of Byrne’s primary school teachers - a delightful, if somewhat deaf, old dear in her nineties. Fortunately, Miss Dowson was one of those teachers who seemed to have instant recall on every single child she had ever taught. Despite a poor phone line and the hardness of hearing on one end of it, Travers did get some information. Asa had been a remarkable child. Yes, she knew he had been in trouble as a young man. No, she was not greatly surprised. He was a boy who always needed a clear focus for his energy and ability. When that focus was not there, all that energy would spill out all over the place. This gave him a bit of a ‘reputation’ at the school, which was unfair and unfortunate - especially as it had been used against him in the juvenile court. She had found him, at times, incredibly mischievous - but never wicked or malicious. Not even what she would call ‘naughty’. Yes, she was aware what had happened to him - and it saddened her greatly. Because I tell you now, Mister Tavistock, the only crime that boy was capable of was the one he probably committed - wasting his talent.

There was a day trawling through the press coverage of the two events with actual dates. Only a couple of reports made specific reference to Asa Byrne - and one of those got his age wrong. One of the wounded was Asa Byrne, 22, a known ‘lieutenant’ in one of Liverpool’s crime gangs, it read. The other described him as a twenty-one-year old man, suspected of involvement in organised crime. Byrne’s death only appeared in four newspapers - two nationals, the London Evening Standard and the Liverpool Echo. These reports were little more than short column-fillers along the lines of British businessman dies in holiday accident. Only the Echo made any reference to the fact that Byrne had ever been in